‘Terrified’ students fled from Dunbarton High School in Pickering, after nine people were stabbed and a female student, 14, was arrested.

Durham Regional Police spokesman Dave Selby said the stabbings were reported around 8:32 a.m. Six minutes later, police had arrested a suspect inside the school.

“We got there pretty fast and were able to arrest her pretty quickly,” he said.

Cassandra Ball, 14, was standing in the front hallway of the school when a horde of students rushed past her and a friend—some were screaming, others were laughing. She was confused. Then, as she stood with her friend in the empty hallway, she said that the assailant walked up to them carrying two eight-inch long knives.

“I was terrified,” Ball said. “I was frozen on the spot. As soon as I got a chance, we bolted through the nearest door and [the assailant] kept walking.”

Sgt. Bill Calder told reporters at the scene that eight people had been stabbed, six of them students and two staff members. Police earlier said one person was taken to hospital with what were believed to be serious but not life-threatening injuries. Later, the Durham District School Board provided an update saying a third staff member had been injured in the incident.
A victim is taken away on a stretcher following a series of stabbings at Dunbarton High School in Pickering on Tuesday.

A victim is taken away on a stretcher following a series of stabbings at Dunbarton High School in Pickering on Tuesday.

However, Calder said at the scene that four victims had been taken to hospital, and that none of the injuries proved to be serious.

Calder said the assailant entered the school through the south entrance, waving a knife around, but that the assaults occurred in several different locations throughout the school.

Several faculty members assisted police.

“The people who deserve the most credit here are a couple of staff members who took her down and actually held her until police arrived,” said Calder.

Matthew Raghunandan, 15, said he was walking out of the library with a book for his English class when the assailant walked around the corner. A teacher, identified by staff and students as Mr. Blair, tackled her.

“He took her down, just tackled her. I was right there, and saw another girl on the ground,” he said. Raghunancan wasn’t sure whether the girl on the ground was wounded or not. Another student, Brian Gillespie, 15, said that a teacher did their best to warn students, even while being attacked herself.

“I saw a teacher with a cut in her face screaming ‘Clear the halls! Clear the halls! And this girl’s swinging knives at her,” he said. His friend Christian was wounded and taken to hospital, but Gillespie said that he’ll only need two stitches.

Some students initially didn’t believe the warnings.

“I thought it was a joke, but everyone was yelling and screaming and telling us to get to a safe place,” said Brianna Ghadney, a student at the school. She managed to find shelter in a science classroom for three hours.

The school was placed on lockdown when the stabbings occurred, but that was lifted around 10:10 a.m.

Some parents first heard about the attacks through texts. Jeff Ross, who has a daughter in grade 10 at the school, had just gotten off a flight from Saskatchewan when his daughter texted to say there’d been a stabbing at the school.

“I just said, ‘Daddy’s coming’ and hung up the phone,” Ross said. He then raced to the school, saying afterwards that he wishes that there was a lane for distressed parents to get to scenes like this. Throughout the incident, his daughter kept texting him—but it still scared him.

Calder said the lockdown was being lifted in a “controlled” fashion, with officers doing a room-by-room search for witnesses and evidence.

Police are conducting interviews with witnesses in the cafeteria, according to Calder, and a social worker has already been brought in to counsel any traumatized students.

“We’re going to make sure they get the attention they need, but we’re going to get their statements before they leave the school,” said Calder.

Durham Regional Police are still investigating. In a release sent early Tuesday, they said that they do not believe that any one student or staff member was specifically targeted.

Mate if somebody wants to kill somebody..well where there is a will there is a way. Anything and I mean anything can be turned into a weapon with enough creative thinking. And it's surprising the amount of already lethal objects in any given situation that are just laying around .

Mate if somebody wants to kill somebody..well where there is a will there is a way. Anything and I mean anything can be turned into a weapon with enough creative thinking. And it's surprising the amount of already lethal objects in any given situation that are just laying around .

yeah literally anything can be turned into a lethal weapon. Now obviously some are more dangerous than others but still.